


Blackout

by 8sword



Category: Supernatural
Genre: #spnfemslashbingo, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/F, Kid Fic, M/M, Slytherin!Claire, Softball, college!Anna, college!Ruby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4801658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's no need to thank us," Dean says. "You're family, Krissy."</p><p>Krissy manages a smile. "I know. I told Emma you were going to adopt me."</p><p>Castiel raises an eyebrow. "How kind of you to share this plan with me," he tells Dean dryly.</p><p> </p><p>[Various pairing fics for SPN Femslash Bingo]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Don't Do That" (Anna/Ruby)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SPNfemslash bingo for the prompt "don't do that." I picture this Ruby as Version 1.0 Ruby from Season 3, but it works either way. Hipster!Anna is my favorite Anna, and to picture Julie McNiven in a black tank stop with tattoos on her upper arms while wearing chunky black glasses and worn old jeans is one of my dearest Anna fantasies.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"You know what," Anna said waspishly.

"I don't," said Ruby, and blew another straw wrapper at her.

A collection of denuded green straws sat beside her on the table, mirroring the rainbow of highlighters scattered across Anna's half of the table. They'd gotten glances from the baristas more than once, and Anna was pretty sure that no matter how loyal a customer she was, they were going to be asked to leave any minute now. "Could you not get me kicked out of my favored workplace?"

"I'll try," Ruby said insincerely, and began to peel the wrapper off of another straw, one of the black extra-long ones this time.

Anna kicked her.

Ruby dodged. "Do we have to be here?"

"You don't," Anna said with asperity, continuing to type. " _You_ don't have any papers due."

"Is that jealousy I hear," Ruby said, deadpan. "It's not too late for you to join the dark side."

Ruby knew very well that it was, even if Anna had wanted to, with them both being two years into their graduate degrees, so Anna continued to type, ignoring Ruby's enumeration of the advantages of earning an M.B.A. It was beginning to get cold inside, goose bumps crawling from beneath the straps of the old black Alice in Wonderland tank top she wore, and she pulled her hair out of the messy bun it was clipped into to give her bare shoulders some protection from the air conditioning. She ran her thumb over the teeth of the clip as she reread the sentence she had just typed.

"We have coffee at home, you know," Ruby said. "And a table to type on."

Anna ignored her some more. Ruby blew out a breath, impatient, and stared around the shop, knocking the heels of her boots against the rungs of the stool. Anna still had half of an orange-cranberry scone sitting in front of her computer, and Ruby broke pieces of it off to eat as she stared down various patrons of the shop.

 

 

Finally, when perhaps ten minutes had passed, she jumped off her stool, landing with a loud slap of her heels against the floor. Anna spared her a glance from behind her black-framed glasses, raising a brow, but didn't stop typing.

"I can tell when I'm not wanted," Ruby announced and, taking the rest of Anna's scone with her, swept out the door.

Anna let her go, starting a new paragraph. Ten minutes went by, then another five, and Anna gave up trying to formulate any sort of synthesis on the quotation she had just transcribed. She sighed, instead, pushing her glasses up to pinch the bridge of her nose and tilting her phone toward her to check the time. The coffee shop's interior around her was lit a warm yellow, dusk having fallen outside the full-length glass windows, and through them, the head- and brake-lights of the cars in the drive-through queue glow orange and red in the darkness. Above them were the hazier white glows of the parking lot lamps providing enough light to read by in the small adjoining courtyard with its fake wicker furniture and tables. If Ruby could have just amused herself for another hour or so, they could have sat outside at one of the cozy little tables with cups of tea and propped their feet atop each others' knees as the summer night moved slowly by around them.

 

When she got to their apartment, it was dark. She flipped on the kitchen light, dropping her keys on the counter. Ruby was out somewhere sulking, maybe; will come home smelling of Midtown and sweat.

She dug a cigarette out of the pack that lived in the side compartment of her knapsack, shaking it free. Went out onto their ledge of a balcony and lit it, drawing her feet up into the frayed blue camp chair next to the green one and curling her bare toes over its edge. The drag she took from the Marlboro was as slow as it was deep, the nicotine crawling into her veins like the sounds of the cicadas in the grass three stories away, a background hum. It was nearly full dark, and the group of underclassmen boys from the rental house down the block were darker shapes in the street, jeering at each other as they hopped on and off their skateboards, clattering on the asphalt.

The glass door shoved open behind her. Anna tilted her head backward to see Ruby wrestle the door shut behind her. She had a pink and orange box in her hand: doughnuts, which she dropped into her lap as she plopped down into the camp chair next to Anna's.

"What?" she said. "Smelling all that coffee made me hungry."

Anna exhaled a plume of smoke. Ruby kicked her feet out in front of her and took a huge bite out of a powdered donut, chocolate cream filling oozing out of the other side. A dollop of it landed on her jeans, and she looked down at it, eyes narrowed. Then she shrugged and swiped it up with her finger, licking it off.

Anna stubbed her cigarette out on the patio railing. "C'mere."

Ruby eyed her instead of complying, still chewing her donut. White powder dusted the tip of her nose. She swallowed, then scooted closer, the camp chair legs scraping against the floor. Anna hooked her leg over Ruby's and leaned in to lick the powder from her nose. Ruby dragged the doughnut across Anna's mouth and cheek, spreading white powder there. She shoved the doughnut box onto the floor to climb onto Anna and straddle her legs; Anna opened her mouth to meet her tongue, sweet sugary swipes between them, the sourer tang of chocolate, the push of Ruby's breasts against hers.

The camping chair's old fabric creaked under their combined weight, the restless clench and unclench of Ruby's thighs around Anna's hips. They breathed, and kissed, and breathed, and finally Ruby pulled away, boots thudding decisively on the floor, her features barely visible in the dark.

"Will you come with me _now_?"

Anna slid out of the chair in answer. Ruby drew her into another kiss by her spit-slick chin, pulling her inside the apartment. She darted back outside a moment later to snag the box of doughnuts, and in the bedroom, for the next few hours, they put the powder and chocolate and jelly to very, very good use.

 

(When Anna woke up the next morning. Smarting with bite marks at the inside of her knee and the crease of her hip and curve of her breast. It was to a straw wrapper being blown into her face.

"Don't _do_ that!")

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Spring (Break)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claire/Emma. For the prompt "spring." This takes place in some distant future of HFK/"The Whole Romance Thing" 'verse, but it is comprehensible without having read them.

"Dude," Emma says as she watches Krissy walk down the shoreline toward the pier. Aidan walks alongside her, slapping the back of her ankles with one of the foam swimming noodles Cas bought on the way into town. "She hates my guts."

"So?" Claire, holding the end of the rope looped around the circumference of the tube Emma's sprawled in, pulls her out toward the horizon into an incoming wave, hitching her up just high enough to keep her face clear of its crest.

" _So_ , it sucks for someone not to like you."

"I like you," Claire says, and lifts her through another wave, this time letting it hit her in the face. Emma splutters, kicking ineffectually at her in revenge. Claire grins, then comes a voice: "Ho, my ladies!"

They both turn to look in the direction of the shore. Dean is still conked out on a towel, his foot buried where Krissy and Aidan poured sand on it after Aidan finally stopped flirting with Emma, and Cas is conversing quietly with Josephine and Amelia. Charlie was the one who called out; she's swimming toward them with a boogie board in two. She has one of Dean's endless pairs of aviators on, her hair in a wind-swept bun, and two cans of pink lemonade in her free hand.

Emma grins as she comes closer, lifting a foot out of the water in greeting as Claire turns and pulls them closer to the shore and Charlie. "Ho, my ho!"

"Dear lady, there is no need for such language," Charlie says, and pulls herself onto the giant Wolverine boogie board, kicking toward them. "I was only bringing you lemonade." She tosses a can toward them.

"Dibs," Claire says immediately, grabbing it and popping it open to take a drink. At Emma's evil eye, she gestures down at them. "Who's the one doing the work here?"

"Uh, my swimsuit top," Emma says. "You think it's easy keeping these things up?"

"I'm sure I've volunteered to help," says Claire.

Charlie chokes on her lemonade, laughing. When she's recovered, she says, "You guys wanna lay off the foreplay while the old maid's over here?"

"Oh, Emma, it turns me on so hard when you complain about lemonade," Claire deadpans.

Charlie grins as Emma snickers. "All right, shut it, sassy."

Claire takes another sip of lemonade and inclines her head in acknowledgement.

"Why're you guys all the way out here anyway?" Charlie kicks her feet idly. "The party's over there, where Sleeping Beauty is."

Emma smiles, glancing back at where Dean is again, where Cas has leaned over to sift a hand through Dean's hair as he converses with the others. Then she looks back at Charlie, who has leaned back with her throat exposed to the wind coming off the water, balancing her lemonade between her knees so she can trail her hands in the water.

"Charlie," she says.

"Mmm?"

"Do you ever get used to it?"

Charlie tips her head all the way back to look at Emma, her aviators slipping down. "To what?"

"Men commenting on your relationships," Claire says. She hadn't been any happier than Emma when Aidan saw Emma sneaking a kiss from Claire after they finished putting sunscreen on and exclaimed, "Dude! _Hot_." But it wasn't exactly a new experience, so she took Emma's hand and tugged her out to the water instead of icing Krissy's sort-of boyfriend the way she wanted to.

Charlie twists around on the tube so that she's on her stomach and looking at them from over her sunglasses, her arms propped under her chin. Her face is serious. "I wish I knew what to tell you guys."

"I guess that's a no, then," Emma says quietly.

They're all silent for a minute.

"It's been a while since I--" Charlie begins, then stops. Claire and Emma watch her. After a minute, she says, "Since I had what you guys do."

Emma and Claire exchange glances. Charlie snorts. "See?" she says fondly. Nuzzles her chin into her hands again. "That."

Emma leans her head into Claire's rubs and watches Charlie sadly. She loves Charlie more than maybe anyone who isn't Claire or Dean or Cas, loves her like a big sister who should never be sad, never have less than Emma does.

Her toes find Charlie's waist in the water and trail up them to her swimsuit top. "Charlie--you know--if it's been too long, Claire and I could--"

Charlie laughs, reaching down and catching Emma's foot to squeeze it. "Thanks for the invite. But even if I could get past the fact that Dean would totally freeze me in carbonite if I banged either of you, I'm pretty sure you and Claire would blow my brain into a permanent refractory period."

Emma frowns. "But we don't have those?" She twists around to look up at Claire. "Do we?"

"Maybe you two don't," Charlie teases. She leans back in the water again, spreading her arms. "Nope, I'll stick to my good old vanilla tastes, thanks. Just give me a Darth Vader mask and some lightsaber dildoes and I'm good."

"I think our galaxy's definition of vanilla is different from your galaxy's definition of vanilla," Claire says dryly.

Charlie throws her lemonade at her.

 

\- - -

 

That weekend, when they've finally gotten home from the airport Sunday night. Claire comes out of the shower, finally smelling like her own lavender shampoo instead of sunscreen and hotel soap. Emma is cross-legged on the bed, poring over a musty-looking book.

"I think I found a good spell for Charlie," she says in excitement.

Claire groans. The last time they cast a spell, Claire had a tail for two weeks, and the time before that was the de-aged Dean debacle. "How many times do our spells have to go ass-up before you stop casting them?"

Emma grins, putting the book on the nightstand. "Speaking of ass-up…"

Claire throws her towel at her.

 

 

 


	3. Spy AU (bela/meg/charlie)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the "meg x bela x charlie" square but also the "spy au" square. OOPS. It was just too perfect not to do a Man From U.N.C.L.E. fusion. Not sure how much sense this will make if you haven't seen the film, which is TREMENDOUSLY entertaining. I played with doing a version with each of them playing the respective three roles, since each of them would be perfect and fascinating as Ilya, Solo, OR Gaby, but this is the version that got written.

In this world, Celeste is a father's daughter, her red hair bound up in an oil-smudged scarf when high heels click up to the car she lies beneath. One nudges her knee, and Celeste rolls out. Takes in slender ankle, slender leg, scalloped hem. A woman's face, and an insincere smile.

"Hallo, Madchen."

 

In this world, Bela reads horoscopes in the newspaper as a lethal-looking girl stares Charlie up and down and shoves her into a dressing room. She holds long cigarettes to her mouth with white-gloved hands and blows out rings of smoke as Celeste glares at her over the Russian girl's shoulder, accusing.

 

In this world, Margaritka wears houndstooth trousers and a newsboy cap that makes her look younger than Celeste. Of the three of them, though, she is the one with the most blood in her hands, unless you count the thousands who died from the bombs that paid for Celeste's child-sized Mary Janes, her violin lessons, the tiny puppy that walked her each day to and from school.

 

\- - -

 

Celeste would not have left East Germany willingly. Her mother is still there, in a cold hospital room filled with four other iron lungs. The sixth one stopped working two weeks ago, and so did the person who lived inside it. There are no replacement parts for iron lungs, behind the Curtain.

She eyes the jewels in the Galeries Lafayette, and on her fingers and her reflection, and wonders how much they would cost, the parts to make sure her mother's lung never stops.

"There is a time for all of us to die," says the dark-haired Russian, with her dark eyes and her dark voice and dark thoughts. Celeste hates her, and as she pours the hotel brandy into the heavy glass tumblers she imagines dashing it against the Russian's head, and seeing if she still has the superior look in her eyes then. Like Celeste is a child, unruly, and will learn better soon.

 

"I can't believe you put me with her," she tells Bela fiercely. "I would rather have been engaged to you."

"If you think _I_ have any sort of control over this situation, you are sorely mistaken," Bela says with a spritz of perfume to her neck. She tosses the end of a scarf over her shoulder and _moues_ at her reflection in the mirror.

"Cheer up, _Mädchen_ ," she says then, with an airy scented kiss with Celeste's cheek. "We all have our crosses to bear."

She sweeps out of the room.

 

Charlie doesn't see her again until the island, when her wrists are chained to the steering wheel and rain and blood are dripping into her face. Everything is blurry, smoke and the smell of wet dirt filling her nose. She tries to roll upright, tries to push herself onto her elbows. There is sound around her, shouting, engines growling--

Someone hauling her out. Familiar perfume mingling with the smoke and dirt.

"Damn it," pants Bela's voice. " _Damn_ \--"

 

\- - -

 

Before they came out to meet her Aunt Rowena. Margaritka's callused fingers brushing Celeste's skin as she fixed the tracker. The way their eyes met, and how the darkness of them seemed soft, for the first time, instead of hard. The way she flattened her palms against Celeste's leg, warm fingers too, until they stretched in a circle around her thigh, her thumbs touching. How only then Celeste realized she had been shaking.

Margaritka stroked her thumbs in circles until she stopped, her eyes falling there, intent on her work. When Celeste was at last still, she lifted her eyes.

Celeste stared back.

Margaritka smirked gently, a little dimple of an expression, and let her go.

Celeste's heart beat hard all the way downstairs.

 

\- - -

 

Margaritka does not leave the Fifth Horseman in his chair. She calmly slits his throat instead, a gaping smile that disgorges red onto his apron. Panting, she looks up at Bela, who holds her coat tightly around her.

Bela blows hair out of her face, pushing her bangs behind her ears with a hand that shakes. When she realizes it, she pulls it back under her coat, straightening her spine. "About time you showed up."

Margaritka gave her an insincere smile, eyes sweeping over her. "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing reparable," Bela replies. She presses one heeled foot down on the pedal and dispassionately watches the bleeding corpse jerk under the electric current. "Do you have transportation out of here?"

 

Margaritka's van has been replaced by something much better. A marked chopper, alighting on the empty asphalt.

A man in a three-piece suit steps down out of it. He is strangely familiar, and after a moment, Bela recognizes the man whose invitation she lifted at Rowena's party.

He raises an eyebrow at her in acknowledgment of the recognition on her face but otherwise makes no mention of it. "Agents."

The force of the chopper blades blows the newsboy cap from Margaritka's head. She grabs it just in time, scowling. "Who are you?"

"Dean Smith, MI-6." He gives them nods, and a man in a flight suit behind him steps forward to hand them both flight goggles. "I've been commissioned with transporting you both to Vinciguerra Island."

 

There is gear for them on the plane. It's been years since Bela wore fatigues, but Margaritka straps herself into them with swift familiarity, pulling a bandolier around her chest. A black beret over her dark curls completes the picture, and Bela turns away, shrugging on her own combat gear. It feels clumsy, heavy, and halfway through the process she feels hands at her waist, helping her with the straps.

"You're too slow," is Margaritka's only comment, and she latches the bandolier into place over Bela's breasts as Bela pulls her hair back into a tight ponytail. Her eyes flick across Bela's face, brows and mouth set. She seems about to say something, then doesn't. Steps back, one decisive click of her boots, and they exit the room together.

 

\- - -

 

Margaritka touches the crusty clotted red in Celeste's fiery hair. It seems like the only color in the gray and black and brown-smeared landscape, the dismal colorlessness like St. Petersburg in winter, when the only color is from fires in the hearth, and even those disappear quickly, when the coal does. One relies on other things for heat, then, and Margaritka forces her thoughts away from the memories of them, the loud tread of men's boots on their floor and the creaking of bedsprings.

Celeste's hair is red. It is red, and next to Margaritka's hand, and Margaritka touches it, and feels her fingers still.

Celeste leans into the touch, the heavy weight of her head resting against Margaritka's leg. Bela watches them both, eyes tired and dull with kohl smeared around them.

Celeste extends a hand to her, and Bela pushes heavily to her feet and limps over. Sits on the wet ground next to Celeste and leans back against them both.

 

Celeste goes with Smith, when it's all done. Accepting his offered suit jacket and pulling it over her scraped arms, the torn, dirt-smeared back of her dress. Smith, in his suspenders and trousers, turns to them and offers his hand. "I'd say _see you soon_ , but that doesn't seem likely."

Bela doesn't miss the way Margaritka's eyes follow the red gleam of Charlie's hair, visible through the car window.

Just the two of them again, like at the café on the river bank, or the pedestrian bathroom.

She snorts despite herself. Margaritka looks over. She has a bit of dirt smudged on her chin, just next to the delicious cleft there. "What?"

"Just thinking of our auspicious beginnings."

A ghost of a smile touches Margaritka's face.

"Say," Bela says. "How much are you asking for that CO2 laser?"

Margaritka looks smug. "Is not for sale."

 

Bela falls asleep on the car ride back to Rome. Jerks awake sweating, skin slick with the clinging memory of baying hounds, snapping jaws and the violent shaking clink of chain fences, the tear of her pants and skin.

Margaritka is watching her with her dark eyes. They look more like pits than anything, in her pale face, in the darkness of the car.

She says nothing, and Bela doesn't, either.

 

\-- _Where is the disk?_

\-- _It was destroyed by the bomb._

A pause.

\-- _Then why is the American telling her commander she has it?_

 

In the middle of a frozen river. The ice around her cracking. She cannot move. But she cannot stay still, either.

 

\- - -

 

Bela's eyes, when Margaritka enters her room, are silently appraising. She sets her hand on the tabletop, knuckles brushing the cloth.

"I would have lied to my handler," she says. "But I'm on--thin ice, you could say."

Margaritka is silent.

"So--" She takes a step to the side to lift a switchblade from the bed and, in so doing, reveals the glass dish on the table, with the orange-blue flames licking the black computer film inside it. "I need you to make it convincing."

She tosses Margaritka the blade. Margaritka catches it automatically.

"Well?"

Margaritka's eyes slide finally away from the fire to Bela's. The flames are reflected in them, tiny in the dark.

Bela raises an expectant eyebrow.

"Insolent," Margaritka tells her.

Bela smiles. "You love it."

 

When Celeste and Smith find them, Bela has a white bandage neatly taped to the left side of her neck. There is a finger of brandy in her hand, and vodka in Margaritka's. The fire dances happily between them.

"Ah," Smith says. "I was wondering where that had gotten off to."

Celeste lowers her ridiculous sunglasses to look over them at the melted disc. She looks back and forth between them.

"Cheers," Bela says.

Smith takes the last chair at the small table. Takes off his own sunglasses to polish them. "Well, in other news--I've received permission to keep the three of you on loan for a few expeditions. If you'll agree to it."

Celeste makes herself at home on Margaritka's lap to pour herself some brandy. "We're listening."

 

 

 

 

**[[CUE MUSIC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8xr-5ikk68)]**


	4. Donna/Jody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Jody!"
> 
> Jody turns on the bench. Coach Hanscum is hiking toward her, white legs glowing under khaki shorts again. Her tennis shoes are a blaring shade of pink and yellow, like a pack of kid's Trix yogurt.
> 
> She stops in front of Jody, huge equipment bag straps digging into either shoulder. "You came."
> 
> "Well, yeah," Jody says. "I said I would, didn't I?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a Donna/Jody AU I've been piecing together for a while. Donna coaches a girls' city league softball team. Jody, whose niece Krissy plays on the team, ends up volunteering to be assistant coach. Chemistry ensues.

[[First part here.](http://subjecttochange8.tumblr.com/post/111233707216/this-is-not-a-completed-fic-but-the-beginning-of)]

 

Helping to coach means getting to practice early, which means waking up earlier in the morning to pack herself something to eat for dinner after work before she goes to pick up Krissy. She glares blearily at the noodles she's boiling to make a pasta salad out of as the bright green numbers **5:17 A.M.** glow on the stove clock. A yawn stretches her mouth as she spoons the noodles with dressing and chopped broccoli into a Tupperware container to put in the fridge at work. This is definitely the worst idea she has ever had.

When they get to the baseball diamond that evening, it's still light out, the sky dark purple at the horizon and a softer blue above it. The big floodlights are just starting to turn on, and the boys' eight-to-ten-year-old team is still throwing balls back and forth to each other on the diamond. Jody hefts the bag she brought with her higher over her shoulder, tonguing at the inside of her teeth to pry a piece of pasta salad loose, and sets Krissy free with a dollar to go buy a Powerade from the concession stand. Coach Hanscum's truck isn't in the parking lot yet, but the two dads with their kids are there at one of the wooden picnic tables by the stand. Messy Socks is licking the ketchup from a corn dog like it's a lollipop, and Lacy Socks is watching her with very clear disdain, a napkin tucked into her shirt collar like a bib.

"Claire, eat your corn dog," one of the men says.

Lacy Socks sets down her corn dog. "I'm a vegetarian."

"Since when?" demands Other Dad.

"Since--"

"Jody!"

Jody turns on the bench. Coach Hanscum is hiking toward her, white legs glowing under khaki shorts again. Her tennis shoes are a blaring shade of pink and yellow, like a pack of kid's Trix yogurt.

She stops in front of Jody, huge equipment bag straps digging into either shoulder. "You came."

"Well, yeah," Jody says. "I said I would, didn't I?"

Hanscum just smiles, eyes crinkling, like it was a rhetorical question, and heads down toward the dugout.

She stops outside it, checking her watch. Jody checks hers, too, following after her. It's six after. "You gonna tell 'em to clear out?"

"I'm sure they're about to," Hanscum says. But she shifts from foot to foot, as the coach continues to shout instructions to the players.

Jody waits another thirty seconds or so. (She'd told herself she wouldn't, told herself _don't you dare, Jody_ ), but she picks up the whistle she should not have looped over her neck before leaving the station and blows into it, long and sharp.

Everyone on the diamond looks up.

"Time's up!" she says. "Clear out so we can have our turn."

They boys and their coach look back and forth at each other. Then the coach gives a jerk of a nod, and the boys funnel off the diamond and into the dugout, jostling against each other to get their equipment. Hanscum scoots out of the way to make space for them to bump out of the dugout; Jody stands her ground, looking somewhere over all their little heads. Baseball helmets really haven't changed since Owen played.

"You didn't have to do that," Hanscum says lowly when most of them are out and the girls are filing in.

Jody pretends not to hear, swinging her own heavy bag onto the bench. "I was thinking I could take some of the kids aside in small groups to practice pitches."

Hanscum chews on her lip for a minute. Jody watches her, raising an eyebrow.

"I wanted to have them do suicides first," Hanscum says finally. Half tentative and half…reluctant?

Jody raises her hands.

"I'm not trying to take over your team. Sorry if butting in like that with the whistle gave that impression. If you want to do suicides, we'll do suicides."

It still comes out more aggressive than she planned it, and she grimaces internally at herself as Hanscum calls the girls around and demonstrates how to do the suicide runs, from one corner of the diamond to the other. She looks fairly ridiculous, in her khaki shorts and the ankle-cuffed white socks, and Jody looks away from the sight, folding her arms. Takes in the scattered parents on the bleachers: the mom with the assortment of kids and Happy Meals again; the two men in front, the sandy-haired one nudging the other one with his elbow and saying something as he laughs; Rebel Without a Cause up at the top watching with her feet kicked up onto the bleacher seat below her.

After ten minutes in which the girls' laughter and glee over racing each other in the suicides becomes groans and "aren't we done yet?" Donna splits them into two groups. "Coach Jody's going to be helping us today," she announces, clapping her hands once and pointing toward Jody. "Ladybugs, head toward her. Grasshoppers, stick with me."

"I don't want to be a grasshopper," Messy Kid whines. "I want to have a proboscis."

"You're too dirty to have a proboscis," Lacy Socks tells her. She's heading toward Jody with the other girls put in her group.

"What's a proboscis?" Krissy asks Messy Kid.

Messy Kid sticks her tongue out as far as she can, demonstrating. Jody nearly laughs, but her group, including Lacy Socks who's looking back over her shoulder to make an unimpressed look at her sister, is accumulating around her, and she straightens out her face. "Who here's played softball before?"

 

\- -

 

They switch groups after a five-minute water/Powerade/whatever you can convince your parents to buy from the concession stand break. There weren't any stupendous pitchers in the first group, but in the second group there's a girl named Tracy whose first throw goes nearly over the fence.

"Holy COW!" Krissy shouts.

"Sorry," Tracy says quickly. She takes an aborted step forward, as if to go fetch the ball, then one backward instead.

"Don't apologize," Jody tells her. "That was the best throw I've seen all day."

"Hey!" Krissy complains.

"I call 'em like I see 'em, kiddo," Jody tells her, snapping her ponytail and making Krissy groan. "Have you played pitcher before, Tracy?"

"Uh-uh," Tracy says. Her eyes flick up, toward the bleachers, then back to Jody. "This is my first time."

"Then double good job," Jody says. "All right, who's next?"

 

\- -

 

At the end of practice, Jody helps Hanscum gather up the bats and balls. "So," she says as they zip the equipment bags shut, "you pick out anyone who'd be good for catcher?"

Hanscum gives her zipper another tug; it seems stuck. She frowns at it. Gives it another tug. "I sorta figured they'd all take turns playing the different positions." She gives Jody a look that's mostly confused but maybe a little defensive, too.

"Well, sure," Jody says, holding up her hands again. "They should all get to practice and have turns. But you gotta pick a pitcher and a catcher, at least."

"Why?"

"'Cause some of them are gonna be stronger at it than others," Jody says. "You're not helping them if you don't identify their strengths and help them build on them, are you?"

Hanscum gives her another concerned look. Then she looks back down at her bag and tries the zipper again. It makes a ripping sound this time, and she gives up, slings it over her shoulder.

"You're making it sound like some kind of training," she says. "But they're here to have fun and learn how to play a game."

There's something defiant on her voice. Jody raises an eyebrow, and backs off.

 

\- -

 

But still.

Seriously?

It's not like Jody is trying to turn them into professional ball players, or something.

"Aunt Jody?"

Jody blinks and returns to herself. "What?"

Krissy points out the window. "You passed my house."

"'Course I did," Jody says, glancing in the rearview at the dark street and pulling over into the left lane so she can do a U-turn. "Was checking your observational skills."

"Uh-huh," Krissy says. She doesn't look convinced.

"How're things going with your dad and…"

"Kristen?"

"Kristen," Jody repeats. "Yes, her."

Krissy scowls out the window. "I don't like her."

Jody glances over at her.

"She told him to call her Kris," Krissy says. "But sometimes he calls her Krissy, and I don't like it."

"That is kind of awkward," Jody agrees.

They pull into the driveway. A white Nissan is parked there next to Lee's truck.

"You want me to walk you in?" Jody says.

"Can't I just stay the night with you?" Krissy says.

"Nope," Jody says. "I've got an early shift tomorrow, I can't take you to school."

"I can walk!"

"Krissy."

"Fine," Krissy grumbles, getting out of the front. She slams her door, then opens the back door to get her equipment bag and slams that door, too. "Hey!" Jody shouts, but Krissy either ignores her or doesn't hear her, stomping angrily up the front walk.

 

\- -

 

She beats herself up that night. What would it've cost you, Jody, huh? To let the kid stay over for the night. She holds a cold Budweiser bottle against her lips, doorjamb digging into her shoulder as she looks at the dark doorways in the hall, the dark living room with its unlit TV and the rows of Transformers DVDs under it. The room with the name in wooden letters, and the basement she rarely goes past the washing machines to anymore.

She drains the bottle. Goes into her room and goes to sleep.

 

\- -

 

"I've been thinking about what you said," Hanscum says when Jody gets to practice that day.

It takes Jody a minute to register what she said. Lee brought Krissy to practice, throwing Jody a wave before heading up into the bleachers, and Krissy hasn’t looked her way once. It's the cold shoulder, and Jody's aware she deserves it.

When she does, she looks over. Hanscum's in a subdued blue polo today; she looks serious, and not just because of the colors.

"Look," Jody says. "You were right. We're here to make sure the girls have fun and learn something, not to train miniature Derek Jeters. They should all have turns playing the different spots."

"Oh." Hanscum looks taken aback. Then she rallies herself. "No, you were right. We're not doing our best by them if we don't recognize and nurture talent where it is."

"Can we both be right?" Jody doesn’t mean her voice to come out as tired as it does, and Hanscum looks taken aback again before she nods. Her expression is determined.

"Keep an eye out for a catcher?" she says.

"Yup," Jody says, and they nod at each other like a handshake, an agreement.

 

\- -

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's Messy Kid who stands out as top choice, diving into the dirt with great relish to catch grounders and also sometimes pop fly balls, which makes Jody snort and one of her dads, the one who's almost always wearing flannel, groan.

At the end of practice, when the girls tromp toward the dugout to stuff their mitts back into their bags or hand them off to their parents, Jody steps in front of Tracy and Messy Kid. "You two wanna bring your parents over here to talk to me and Coach?"

Tracy looks stricken, then sullen. Messy Kid looks long-suffering, as if having her parents brought over to talk to figures of authority is a fact of life to which she has long resigned herself. Jody hides a smile behind her hand.

Hanscum, though, shakes her head upon seeing their reactions. "You're not in trouble!" she exclaims. "We wanna talk to them about how good you are!"

Messy Kid perks up. Tracy still looks suspicious. Jody motions them off with her hand to find their respective guardians and bring them over, glancing over at Hanscum with an amused quirk of her eyebrow.

"You didn't have to make them think they were in _trouble_ ," Hanscum mutters.

"Did I say anything about being in trouble?"

Hanscum just shoots her an _uh-huh_ look.

Messy Kid is talking to her dads. The dark-haired one has his head tilted to the side as he listens; the other is unscrewing the cap from a water bottle for Lacy Socks as he listens. He hands it to her, then holds out his hand to Messy Kid, who grabs it and begins to skip as they both start toward Jody and Hanscum.

Jody glances around for Tracy. She's standing at the bottom of the bleachers, next to--of all people--Rebel Without a Cause. She looks Morticia-esque today, her long dark hair hanging down over her face.

A snort escapes Jody. Hanscum throws her a look, which makes Jody quickly iron her face out again, and then Rebel starts to skulk toward them, hands in her pockets. Tracy hangs close to her, thumbs hooked around her backpack straps, looking uncertain.

"Hi," Hanscum says when both sets of parents/guardians are close enough. "I'm Donna Hanscum." She sticks out her hand, first to Messy Kid's dad, who shakes it with a grin and a "Dean. Nice to meetcha," and then to Rebel, who hesitates for a minute before grabbing Hanscum's hand for a split second and then dropping it quickly. She mutters something that Jody's pretty sure no one can hear, so she says, "Sorry, didn't catch that."

" _Alex_ ," the girl says a little more loudly. "Tracy's my sister."

Jody can feel Hanscum giving her a look again. "This is Jody, she's assistant coach."

Dean nods at Jody with the same smile he gave Donna. It's a little tighter, though, guarded like he already is suspicious of Jody on principle, and she gets the feeling he's had maybe a few encounters with law enforcement. She raises an eyebrow back, and he just huffs out a laugh, looks back at Donna, who's saying, "The reason we asked the girl to bring you over is that they've been doing such a good job in practice. We wanted to know if you'd be willing to stay an extra half hour after practice to work on their pitching and catching."

Messy Kid shouts and jumps up and down. "Dad!"

"Good job, kiddo," he says.

Jody watches Tracy and Alex. Tracy's looking up at the older girl with an uncertain look, her hands still around her backpack strap.

"Ummm…" she says. "I don't think I can, Coach Donna."

"Why not?" Jody says.

"'Cause we gotta take a bus," Alex says. Everything from her posture to her tone scream _you got a problem with that?_ "They don't run out here past eight." Her eyes flick to the phone in her hand, and Jody glances over at the bus stop, too.

"I can drive you," she hears herself say.

"Thanks," Alex says, not looking thankful at all. "But no thanks. We don't take rides from strangers."

Jody knows she's going too hardcore with this. She _knows_ she is. But she pulls her badge out of her pocket and holds it up. "I'm not a stranger, kid."

Alex's eyes flick back and forth between the badge and Jody. She looks more alarmed than anything, though she hides it quickly, and then she looks over at Hanscum. Hanscum's looking at Jody, a strange expression on her face that disappears when Jody makes eye contact with her. She looks back at Alex.

"It's you guys' choice," she says. "I don't wanna make anything more difficult for you." Her voice is very sincere, the kind of sincere that makes Jody feel simultaneously guilty and like wanting to throw up. "But if you have a way to get here, and if you still wanna do it, I could find a way to get here early. Work with Tracy one on one over on one of the side greens."

"Yeah," Messy Kid's dad says. "We could find a way to get here for that, too."

Tracy looks tentatively hopeful. Morticia is a lot more unreadable. "We'll see," is all she says, after a few minutes, and Jody's going to push for a firmer answer, but Hanscum says, "Okay. Thanks for considering it, Alex. And good job to _both_ of you girls," she says, crouching down to be on their level. "You're great players!"

Tracy looks shyly pleased. Messy Kid just grabs the back of Tracy's shoulders and holds onto them as she jumps up and down, grinning.

"Hey hey hey," says Dean. "You're gonna pull Tracy over, Em, c'mon."

"She likes it!" Emma insists.

"Nah, she's just too polite to tell you to knock it off," Dean says. He pulls Emma off Tracy and leans around to meet Tracy's eyes. "Thanks for being nice to my monster kid, Tracy."

Tracy nods quickly, clasping her hands and moving a little closer to Alex.

"Well," Dean says, "we'll see you guys next week." He throws them a salute and sets back off with Emma to the other half of their family.

The hiss of bus hydraulics comes from behind them. Jody turns to see a city bus pulling up to a stop; she hears Alex hiss, "Crap, come on," and then she and Tracy are racing for it, Tracy's backpack bouncing up and down on her back.

"Are they gonna make it?" Hanscum says in some concern.

They do. The bus stops and waits for them, and Alex crowds Tracy up the steps ahead of her, turning to glance over her shoulder one last time at Hanscum and Jody. Jody's eyes meets her for a second, and then she turns back around, climbing up the steps as the door folds shut behind her. The bus hisses back into motion and trundles down the road, back lights red in the dark.

"Well," Hanscum says.

Jody shrugs. "Could've gone worse."

They go back to the dugout and start packing the bats and balls into Hanscum's equipment bags. They work in quiet for just a few minutes; then Hanscum says, "Deputy, eh?"

Jody looks over. "Don't worry, I didn't look you up to see if you have any outstanding parking tickets."

Hanscums gives a laugh. "I guess you didn't," she says, and reaches into her pocket.

Jody stares at the Sioux Falls Police Department badge. Her eyes slide up to Hanscum's. "You're shitting me."

Hanscum's chortling. "Small world, Deputy."

"That it is, Officer." Jody feels herself smiling. It feels unfamiliar on her face. "What's your beat?"

"I'm a resource officer," Hanscum says. "At Patrick Henry."

Jody's brow rises. "Middle school. You really are tough."

Hanscum laughs again. "Yeah, no kidding," and when she says yeah, it sounds like _yah_ , and Jody's smiling again.

They've gotten to Hanscum's truck. They stop, turning to face each other, each of them with an equipment bag slung over their shoulder, and Jody feels, stupidly, inappropriately, like a middle schooler on her parents' front stoop at the end of a date, caught in that awkward moment where both parties wonder if the other is going to kiss them good night.

"Well," Donna says finally. Slings the bag into the back of her truck. Holds her hand out to take the other from Jody and do the same with it. "Good night, I guess."

Her mouth is still dimpled from the remains of her laughter. Jody tears her eyes away from it, gives a little nod. "Night," she says, doing a stupid salute like Messy Kid's dad had done before, and heads to her truck.

 

 

 

[TO BE CONTINUED]

 

 


	5. Hogwarts AU (Claire/Emma)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is from the hogwarts au I have been working on forever. Professor Naomi is Claire's pureblood grandmother, and each year she hosts a super-classy Christmas gala at their manor which is attended by all the Ministry bigwigs and purebloods. Naomi doesn't like Emma or Dean at ALL, but Claire and Cas (Claire's uncle) invite them to it. Emma spends the night…

Emma doesn't realize how long it's been since she slept alone until she's lying in the massive four-poster bed in the guest wing of the Novaks' manor. Even with the soft crackling of the fire in the equally massive fireplace, the quiet of the room presses on her eardrums, and suddenly she'd give anything for Becky's scratching quill and giggling in the next bed or the quiet rustle of pages turning as Josephine studies Arithmancy. That, or the even sound of Claire's breathing--

There's a crackling sound. Emma freezes under her coverlet.

The sound comes again. Then: "Emma."

Emma's heart pounds hard against her ribs. She lifts her head ever so slightly from the actually-kind-of-uncomfortable-goose-feather pillow.  Then she flops it back down to the pillow in relief when she sees the source of the voice. Claire's head is in the fireplace. Her face is still streaked with the glitter at her eyelids and the rouge on her cheekbones, her lips.

"You scared me," she mutters.

Claire half smiles. "That's certainly not the emotion I intended to inspire."

Emma hesitates. When she left the party half an hour ago, Claire was speaking to a Durmstrang seventh year to whom Naomi had introduced her. Claire seemed pretty animated, and so did the guy. She studies Claire's face in the fire for a minute, then, holding the blanket to her chest, walks on her knees carefully down to the edge of the bed, closer to the fire. The green flames make Claire's glitter daubed face seem ethereal in a different way than normal, almost like the scales of a serpent or a dragon, and once again Emma feels dwarfed by the weight of Claire's regard of her, not just her stare but everything else--the fact that Claire has invited her here, and into her chambers at school, and into the space between her sheets. After the glitter and gold of the part, Emma is acutely aware of how little she belongs in any of those places, and yet when Claire says, "You remember where my room is?" she finds herself saying, "yes," and sliding off the bed as Claire's head disappears from the fire with a small shower of sparks.

               

She is not altogether experienced in the art of booty calls, but she's pretty sure that the white cotton panties with the unravelling waistband that she's wearing under her flannel pants aren't really appropriate attire. The only sexy underwear she's brought along, though (okay, that she owns at all) are the turquoise silk panties Charlie had picked out to go with her dress.

She bites her lip, studying them. Then she shimmies out of her pants to put them on and steps back into the pants before she can reconsider. There's a bra that goes with them, but she doesn't want to look _too_ hopeful.

…right?

For a minute, she wishes she could call Charlie for some guidance. But there's no Floo powder in the pot beside the fireplace, and it's possible that Charlie's not necessarily the best person to ask for wardrobe advice. She's still sporting that third eye.

There's no one in the hallway when Emma slips out of her room, which is a relief, because she feels distinctly Muggle in her hoodie and pants, and the screaming portrait of Claire's great-great aunt in the corridor downstairs had made it all too clear how unwelcome that sort of thing was in the manor. Emma's insides twist just at the memory of it. It makes her pause outside Claire's closed door, close her eyes and swallow before she knocks softly once on the door.

There's no "come in." Just the doorknob twirling gently and the door swinging silently inward.

Emma slips inside, blinks to let her eyes adjust to the darkness as the door shuts behind her. The only light is from the fireplace, which illuminates a four-poster bed just as massive as the one in Emma's room. It takes Emma a moment to locate Claire in it, her eyes gleaming slightly in the dim light as she watches Emma approach from where she's lying on her side, covers up to her chin.

Emma grins a little as she comes to a stop beside the bed. "Why Grandma, what big teeth you have."

Claire grins back, a quick flash of white teeth in the dim light above the blanket. "Why yes, why don't you come closer to inspect them?"

Emma moves to climb into the bed, then pauses. "Speaking of grandmas," she says awkwardly, because apparently that's her modus operandi when it comes to sex with Claire, "is yours, like..." She motions vaguely between herself, Claire, and the bed, "okay with this sort of thing?"

Claire gives her a dry look. Like, _you have class with my grandma twice a week, you should know she's not okay with anything, much less her only granddaughter having lesbian sex with a half-blood_. Then she shifts under the comforter onto her side, propping her head on her hand, and says, with her usual piercing gaze, "Should she find out, I would merely remind her that it's a Slytherin quality to do what one wants." A smile touches her lips. "Or who."

Emma snorts. The bawdy humor always helps her best; she slips under Claire's comforter, shivering at the transition to warmth from the cold air and floor. Claire's legs are waiting for her; one pushes between hers immediately, hooking under one of her ankles and rubbing her socked foot with the other. Emma flexes her foot against Claire's stroking one for a moment, relishing the contact, then wriggles down in the bed and hitches her leg up higher.

Then stops.

"Um." Her face is hot. "Claire."

Claire's hand has found its way under the hem of Emma's hoodie. "Mmm?"

"You're not wearing any clothes," Emma whispers.

"No." Claire props her head up on her hand, her eyes going wide and fascinated, like _do go on._ "Really?"

Emma rolls her eyes and rolls onto her stomach, sandwiching Claire's hand beneath it. "You're making fun of me."

Claire wriggles her hand experimentally. "Correction: I'm _having_ fun _with_ you."

Emma resolutely keeps herself from shuddering at the touch. Fails when Claire's hand wriggles lower. She arches. Claire takes the opportunity to dip under the waist of her pajama pants.

"Oh," she says. "It feels like I'm not the only one who dressed for the occasion."

A flush sweeps down Emma from head to toe, so hot she pushes her face into the pillow in embarrassment because she's sure Claire'll be able to feel it. "Can you say sleaziest line ever, Claire?"

"Can you say, you fell for it, Emma?" Claire's finger strokes back and forth against the top of the panties, idly.

Emma tries to glare at her. It becomes a stupid grin, instead, and then a sloppy kiss.

 

(All in all, it is a pretty successful booty call.)

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for the Emma/Krissy square but also the Emma/Krissy/Claire square? WHO CAN TELL. 
> 
> This is an AU of the The Whole Romance Thing 'verse, which is in turn an offshoot of the His Fucking Kids 'verse. You don't have to have read either of those for this: just know that Claire and Emma graciously allowed Dean and Cas to be their dads during high school and they are now in college sharing an apartment.
> 
> I wanted to sit on this one for a while longer, but I'll be honest, I had a shitty day and I need the positive reinforcement. Please comment if you like it?

 

Emma opens their apartment door one day to find Krissy Chambers sulking on their couch.

She stops short. Krissy shoots her a glance from beneath her knit eyebrows, then goes back to eating the slice of leftover pizza from the open box on her lap.

The box of leftover pizza that Emma had been saving to eat for breakfast tomorrow.

"Hey!" she says accusingly.

"Didn't have your name on it," Krissy says. She doesn't bother to swallow.

"That's because it's _our_ apartment," Emma says. "Everything has our name on it. In invisible ink."

"Time to switch to Sharpie," Krissy says, and keeps eating.

 

Emma texts Claire. **did you invite fred jones to our house?**

The reply text comes over an hour later; Claire's a good student who always puts her cell phone on silent during class. _Who's fred jones????_

Emma snaps a picture of Krissy sitting on their couch. Krissy, at the sound of the shutter, gives her the finger over her shoulder and turns up the volume on "Family Feud."

_I still don’t get the reference,_ Claire replies. _But no, I did not invite Krissy. Ask Dean._

"Why are you here?" Emma says instead, commanding, disgruntled, plopping down on their bright green camp chair since the couch is taken.

"Can't a girl visit her almost-adopted-stepsisters?"

"Dean wasn't going to adopt you."

"Says you."

Emma grits her teeth.

"Help yourself," she throws over her shoulder sarcastically, and leaves.

 

Ajax puts his pencil on top of his nose again. They're in his apartment, studying. Ostensibly. "So, who is this chick again?"

"Some girl who knows my dad."

"Which dad?"

Emma shoots him a look. "My only dad? Dean."

"Sor _ry_ ," Ajax says. "I think of Cas as your dad, too, forgive me for existing."

Emma looks somewhat contrite. She mumbles something.

"Well, you can stay the night here if you want," Ajax says, nodding toward his extra bedroom. "Fair warning, though, Marquise is coming over."

" _That's_ why you wanted us to walk past the health center on the way home."

"Shut your face," Ajax commands, but also produces a handful of condom packets to throw at her. She darts away under the onslaught, laughing, and grabs the Lysol disinfectant from his countertop to spray down his entire apartment until they're both coughing and laughing and stumbling out into the hallway.

 

They retreat to Emma and Claire's apartment. Krissy is just coming out of the door when they reach it, her duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She stops dead when they round the corner, shoulders stiffening under her ridiculously over-sized flannel. She looks stupidly small and abandoned with her fraying duffel and equally over-sized boots.

She meets Emma's stare. "I can tell when I'm not wanted," she says with a shrug.

Emma can sense Ajax's Judgment Stare on her. She mumbles, "You're not not wanted. Get back in there," and kicks at Krissy's shins until she goes back inside.

Ajax's Judgment Stare becomes something smug. Emma says loudly, "Have fun with your CONDOMS," and shuts the door on him.

 

"This is cozy," Claire says when she gets home and they're all sitting around their card table eating bowls of ramen. "We don't often do entertaining that doesn't involve booze."

"I wouldn't say no to some," Krissy says under her breath.

"We don't serve to minors," Claire says primly.

"I'm older than you!"

"Are you? I only see a fake ID here." Claire produces a driver's license with Krissy's photo on it, waving it back and forth in the air.

Krissy tries to stifle the shocked expression that flies across her features and the aborted motion her hand makes toward her pocket, but doesn't quite manage it. Emma grins around her mashed potatoes.

"Best not to get into any trouble while you're here." Claire is smiling; there's a steel in her eyes, though, that is unmistakable. "You wouldn't want to break our cover story as two mild-mannered college students."

Emma laughs aloud.

 

That night she goes into Claire's room while Claire's still working on her computer. Claire never does homework or studying on her bed, says it sends the body mixed signals about when to sleep and when to work, so the space is clear for Emma to crawl under her comforter and lay her chin on her arms, watching Claire type at her desk.

Claire eventually sits back and looks over at her. Emma raises an eyebrow.

Claire raises one back.

"I didn't call Dean," Emma says. Then, defiantly, "But I'm going to."

"Are you," Claire says mildly.

"Why shouldn't we?" Emma says. "It’s weird. Krissy barely even knows us. There's probably something untoward afoot."

Claire snorts. She turns back to her computer, starting to type again, but says, "Well, I suppose neither of us know what it's like to need some time away from our family."

Emma's mouth compresses in acknowledgment of the hit. Claire gentles it by wriggling her toes up onto the bed under Emma's arms, right into her armpit. Emma jerks, startled and tickled, before relaxing again.

After a few minutes, she rolls off the bed, leaving Claire's comforter a rolled-up mess. Outside, in the living area, Krissy is camped out on the couch with a blanket, fiddling with her cell phone.

"Night," Emma says, not quite awkwardly.

"Night," Krissy says, and Emma goes into her room and shuts the door.

 

She's not sure what Krissy does the next day, or the next, but she eats dinner with them--nachos today, with shredded lettuce and baby carrots to serve as their vegetables. She's not always in the apartment when Emma comes back between classes, her blanket neatly folded at one end of the couch, but on the third day, she's waiting outside the biology lab when Emma emerges from her three-hour session.

Emma squints at her. "Are you stalking me?"

"I _am_ a hunter," Krissy says, which makes Emma stiffen, her pulse skipping fearfully to life. Krissy notices, quickly saying, "Sorry, that was--"

"A joke in really poor taste. What do you want?"

"You didn't tell Dean I'm here."

"Claire said we shouldn't." She doesn't want to take any of the credit for giving Krissy space to be away from her demons, or whatever they are.

Krissy's quiet for a while, falling into step beside Emma as she strides down the sidewalk toward the crosswalk. "Thanks."

"Whatever," Emma says. "I've got study group." She presses the CROSS button and steps off the curb. "See you at home."

 

After that, she sees Krissy in glimpses around campus--at the food court in the student union, perched on the wall near the library bike rack, studying a book under the shade of a tree at the education building. Even emerging with the stream of students from the big lecture halls, dark eyes thoughtful and distant.

"Yeah," Claire says when Emma asks. "She's come to a few classes with me. I tell people she's a transfer student, looking around to see what she wants to major in here. It's hard, you know, most of my classes are small, not the two-hundred seat ones like yours."

There's a hint there. Emma chooses to ignore it.

"It’s not fair," she tells Ajax as they sit at a table in the student union one Friday night, Uno cards in one hand and slices of dripping pizza in the other. "It's not _my_ job to figure out what she wants to do with her life."

Ajax hums noncommittally. Marquise returns from the Wendy's with a huge frosty, sliding into his chair across from Emma and pulling the Frosty away when Ajax makes a grab for it. "After all those Draw Two's you slapped on me? I don't think so."

Emma cackles. Ajax says, "See if I listen to your woes anymore," and lays down a wild Draw Four.

Emma's cackle becomes a glare. Marquise says, "Glad I put down that reverse."

 

After the Uno game, they head to the queue for the 10:00 showing of _Fantastic Four_ at the student cinema. The queue's mostly made up of groups of freshman, laughing and shoving each other, and some couples, standing close together and bumping each other's shoulders and murmuring quietly. Ajax and Marquise aren't doing anything but sharing Marquise's Frosty, slurping the melted remains through separate straws, but Emma feels like a third wheel anyways, and has the fleeting thought that she should have invited Krissy along.

She immediately glares at herself.

"Look at her," Ajax says to Marquise. "Isn't she cute when she's having inner angst?"

Marquise laughs and pulls a box of Sour Patch Kids from his pocket. "Whoever it is, I'd ask them out," he advises Emma, who frowns all the more thunderously.

"You guys suck," she informs them, and stalks ahead of them into the theatre, kicking her feet up onto the seat in front of hers and jamming her chin stubbornly into the neck of her jacket to watch the trailers.

 

Ajax and Marquise head to Midtown afterward. Emma heads home instead--Krissy's on the couch, watching something on TV. Her hair is down, long and dark against her red flannel. She looks up when Emma comes in.

"Wanna go get donuts?"

"Sure." Krissy stands up and grabs her jacket. The cuffs cover her knuckles, her fingers peeking out.

They head down the street, hands pushed deep into their pockets. It's only October, but their breath makes white puffs in front of their faces in the dark as the orange headlights and red brake lights of cars zoom past them on the street.

Krissy gets Boston Cream. Emma gets plain cake. They both get hot chocolate, their fingers curled around the warm cups as they stand at the corner, shivering, waiting for the Cross sign to light up.

"So why are you here?" Emma says.

Krissy licks cream from her fingers in the orange wash of the street light. "Josie left."

Emma looks over.

Krissy's watching a group of laughing girls in heels make their way down the other side of the street. "She got a scholarship. Started at Carnegie Mellon last month."

"You guys didn't go with her?"

"We--fought. Before she left."

"You didn't want her to leave." Emma remembers the fear, when Claire was looking at colleges. The terrified paralysis. Not wanting to be left behind.

Krissy doesn't say anything.

"And…Aidan?" Emma watches her profile in the darkness.

"Aidan's angry," Krissy says. "He's…" A breath escapes her. "I'm tired of being angry. I just want--"

The Cross light comes on.

"What?" Emma asks. Not moving from the curb.

"I don't know." Krissy steps down into the street. A car waiting to turn left honks, and Emma follows her into the street, flipping the car the bird. She almost misses Krissy muttering, "I don't know what I want."

"I don't know either," she says when they've reached the other side of the street, down onto the darker residential street, away from the headlights and noise of the main avenue.

Krissy shoots her a look over her shoulder, her features all in shadow. "Whatever," she says, and bitterness bites her voice. "You guys are--you're more human than I am. You fucking--go to classes, and--fuck around in the library and do--I don't know, fucking _calculus_ \--"

Emma stares, the realization unwinding inside her that someone is jealous of _her_. It's not the glorious feeling she would have expected; instead, she feels a deep, gnawing guilt, her stomach turning. Feels like she should apologize for having what Krissy doesn't.

Neither of them say anything more. They walk up the street, into the apartment courtyard, and up the stairs into the dark, empty rooms.

Krissy turns on the TV and lies down on the couch.

 

On Wednesday, Ajax and Marquise have a fight. Claire brings ice cream home, Emma busts out the microwave popcorn and Ajax's favorite Ally McBeal episodes, and they spend the evening somewhat comforted by the reassuring message conveyed by Ally's misadventures: The world is in fact full of (other) people who (also) suck at life.

Ajax conks out on their couch. Claire slants Emma a look that says, _your friend, your bed_ , and Emma sighs, and throws their blanket over Ajax, and nods at Krissy to follow her to her room.

They take turns changing into their pajamas in the bathroom. When Emma comes back from putting hers on, wearing a bra under her usual sleep shirt, Krissy is already under the covers, curled up on her side facing the center of the bed. Their eyes meet.

Emma hesitates for a minute. Then she squeezes into the bed on its other side, sacrificing her pillow to put it between them as a barrier.

"What," Krissy says. Her voice is abnormally close, from this proximity. Emma can smell her toothpaste. "You think I've got cooties or something?"

"I kick," Emma says.

"How do you know?"

"Claire said so."

" _Oh_?"

Only then does Emma get what Krissy was implying. "Shut up, Krissy," she mutters, and rolls over to give her back to her.

Krissy laughs. She doesn't say anything more, though. Just slides her foot, under the pillow, over Emma's ankle, and lets it rest there. A light, bearable weight, letting her know there's someone else in the bed.

They fall asleep.

 

Friday morning finds Krissy standing outside the chemistry building, in front of the glass case displaying course syllabi. She studies them, as the damp morning air breathes past her nose and cheeks, pressing the wispy curls at her neck against her skin. She wanted to be a pediatrician once, before everything changed.

Someone else's reflection comes up behind hers in the glass.

She looks up at him. Nods at the chemistry building. "Aren't you supposed to be in there?"

"I may have overslept," Ajax says. "Also, they put the lectures online now."

Krissy makes a noncommittal sound. Looks at the lecture hall doors.

"Uh uh uh," Ajax says. "Don't you go trying to be a bad influence on Emma and convince her to skip class, now. She's very susceptible to peer pressure."

There's an edge of hardness beneath his joking tone. Krissy studies him, measuring him the way she would an opponent she was about to take on with her knife, looking for weak points. "You don't like me."

Ajax gives a little gasp, as if in offense. "I never said that."

"Jealous?"

"Are you?" he returns. His gaze is just as measuring as hers.

The lecture hall doors open, then, students streaming out. Krissy turns in time to see Emma emerge, stuffing her notebook into her bag as she says something to a lanky guy in a Pink Floyd t-shirt. She raises a hand at him in goodbye when she spots them, breaking off to come toward them.

"What gives?" she greets Ajax. "It was your turn to take notes."

"Krissy asked me to meet her for breakfast," he replies, taking a sip from the Starbucks cup in his hand. "We had to gossip about you behind your back."

Emma eyes them both suspiciously, looking uncertain. Krissy says, "That's bullshit, Claire's the only one who talks about you behind your back."

A grin replaces the uncertainty on Emma's face. " _That's_ bullshit. C'mon, we've got lab."

Ajax heaves a sigh and tosses his Starbucks cup into a nearby trash can, saluting a goodbye to Krissy as they head toward the lab building. "Nice talking to you, Kristy!"

 

That weekend is a Home Weekend. Claire and Emma exchange glances of slight surprise when Krissy stuffs some clothes back into her duffel to come with them.

"Dean's gonna interrogate you," Emma warns.

"I claim shotgun," is all Krissy says, to which Claire smiles mysteriously and Emma gives a shout of _as if!_ laughter and darts out to the car, shoving herself into the passenger seat.

"I'll drive, then," Krissy says.

"Think again," Claire says kindly.

 

Dean and Cas don't say anything when Krissy piles out of the car with them on Friday night, which makes Emma think that maybe Claire has said something to them after all, but a glance at her face doesn't reveal anything. Dean holds the front door open for them with his foot, thumping Emma's duffel bag with his hand as she passes, which goads her to step on his foot as she passes him, which in turn makes him give a shout, and Cas heaves a quelling sigh for all of them.

"I would tell you they're not always like this, Krissy, but that would be a falsehood," he says.

"Yeah, Emma's pretty violent," Krissy says, which gets her a glare from Emma and a laugh from Dean.

"Tilapia!" calls Claire from the kitchen.

"Dibs!" Emma cries, dropping her bag on the floor and moving toward the kitchen.

"I just called dibs," Claire's voice says. "That was why I shouted tilapia."

"Shouting _tilapia_ isn't the same as calling dibs--"

Cas raises his voice. "There's enough tilapia for both of you. Unless Krissy prefers tilapia to salmon, in which case one of you will be courteous and offer to let her have yours." He looks at Krissy, who shakes her head.

"I'm not picky. Uh--thanks for having me."

"There's no need to thank us," Dean says. "You're family, Krissy."

Krissy manages a smile. "I know. I told Emma you were going to adopt me."

Castiel raises an eyebrow. "How kind of you to share this plan with me," he tells Dean dryly.

"Are we gonna eat or what?" Emma and Claire bring their plates to the table. Cas gives them a Displeased Eye. They retreat back to the kitchen and plate up food for everyone else, too, bringing it to the table.

 

Krissy doesn't get quizzed during dinner. They talk about Cas's new job, instead, and Dean's new part-time mechanic, a high school whiz-kid the size of a fifth grader who's already been accepted to MIT for next fall.

"His mom gives me an Evil Eye every time she comes to pick him up from work," Dean says. "I dunno what the hell got into me, agreeing to hire him."

"Cas probably had something to do with it," Claire says.

"Probably," Dean agrees, to which Castiel only smiles vaguely and takes another bite of chicken.

When they're finished, Cas begins to gather up their plates. "Will you help me with dishes, Krissy?"

"Uh--sure," Krissy says automatically. She takes Claire's and Emma's plates, avoiding eye contact with them, and follows Cas into the kitchen. She feels clumsy and out of place and stupidly nervous--Cas has been human for most of the time she's known him, but he was an angel before that, and--it's just unnerving, is what it is.

She remembers doing dishes with her dad sometimes. More often than not, they ate out of takeout containers or off of paper plates, but sometimes they were in places for longer than usual, motels that came stocked with cheap plastic ware, and they washed them after the ate instant mac'n cheese off of them, Krissy sucking the orange cheese powder off her fork tines before they scrubbed them. She wasn't quite tall enough to reach the sink then, and she was in charge of drying dishes, instead, going up on her tiptoes to put them on the counter when they were dry.

Cas doesn't say anything as they scrub the dishes. He just smiles when they're done, and thanks Krissy for her help, and heads upstairs to bed, telling Dean he'll be waiting for him.

"Ugh," Emma says. "Stop, you guys, really? You have the house to yourself all the other nights of the month."

"What makes you think we don't take advantage of them?" Dean says.

Claire's neatly aimed napkin ball hits him in the forehead.

 

Krissy shakes her blanket out over the couch. Claire stretches out on the floor, snagging a pillow from the couch, and Emma flops over the armchair. Neither of them make any move to go upstairs; Claire flips through television channels until they settle on "Modern Family."

Krissy's not sure when she falls asleep. Just that at some point, she wakes up, a little, the room dark except for the light from the nearly muted television. She rolls over, on the couch, and squints until she sees the armchair, Emma curled up there, her hair falling over the side of the arm. Her hand dangles over it, too, casting a long claw-like shadow across the room in the TV's light.

The feeling of being watched gradually enters Krissy's half-asleep awareness. She turns her head and meets Claire's pale eyes, watching her in the dark. They gaze at each other.

Claire doesn't say anything. Just watches, and eventually Krissy's eyes must close again, sleep swallowing her, and in the morning, Krissy is almost, almost able to convince herself that she dreamed of those pale eyes, watching her in the darkness.

 

The talk comes on Sunday morning, before they head back onto the road. Dean tells Krissy to come with him to check the tire pressure on the girls' car, and when they're standing at the gas station in their coats and pajamas in the fresh morning light, air crisp and chilly, he says as he crouches to fit the pressure gauge to the tire valve, "You're welcome to stay with us, you know."

Krissy studies the quarter slot of the air machine.

"Or if you want to go to college. We can get that set up, too." He pulls the gauge off the valve. Krissy hands him the valve cover, and he screws it back on, then crouches beside the next cover, unscrewing the cover. "Just tell me what you wanna do, Krissy. We'll make it happen."

Krissy studies the black smudge left behind on her hand by the valve cover. She doesn't know what she wants to do. And she doesn't want to trap herself by making the decision, because it doesn't feel like it would be a step forward so much as it would be a bar fitted to the window, the first in a series that would trap her inside. Or out.

The tire valve hisses as air streams out of it. Dean pushes the gauge to it and squints up at her, his eyes clear bottomless hazel in the morning light. "Just. Think about it, okay?"

 

Krissy thinks about it. Then tries not to. Then does, again.

Claire sits down next to her, that next Friday night. On the cement bench outside the Liberal Arts building where there's a courtyard full of bricks engraved with the names of people who have done important things, casting tiny shadows in the light from the single streetlamp at the edge of the curb.

"Hey," she says. Hands Krissy her fake ID. "Ready for that booze?"

 

Emma eyes them in some betrayal, when they get to the apartment that night. She's in pajamas, all purple, including fuzzy purple slippers that look like weird huge dusty bunnies on her feet, and a purple hoodie, and a headband pulling her hair back with a huge pancake ponytail above it. She looks ridiculous. She looks cuddly and adorable.

"You got her drunk," she tells Claire.

"I got _us_ drunk," Claire informs her.

Emma eyes her doubtfully. Krissy clomps forward and falls onto the couch next to Emma, laying her head on her knees and wrapping her arm on her legs.

Emma pats her shoulder uncertainly. But she brings her legs up onto the coffee table to give Krissy a little better pillow, and rests her arm comfortably atop her shoulders. Something protective about it, and the exchange of her voice and Claire's above Krissy's head.

"Night," she mumbles, and Emma says, "good night, Krissy," and brushes her hair out of her face.

Her and Claire's voices continue in the background, a musical up and down that lulls Krissy to sleep.

 

She wakes up uncomfortably cramped. Her knees are jammed against the back of the couch, and her face is full of her own hair and the front of Emma's hoodie pocket.

She sits up. Emma, under her, makes a protesting noise and pulls away, curling up on her own side against the arm of the couch.

Krissy squints around. Morning sunlight is streaming through the drawn blinds, illuminating dust motes in the air. Claire is lying on the floor under a Justice League microfleece, blonde hair strewn across one of the couch pillows and her lips apart as she breathes in, out. In, out. She looks much younger when she's asleep.

Krissy wriggles until she's curled up against the other arm of the couch. Wriggles one foot under Emma's flannel-clad legs, and the other under Claire's blanket on the floor. It's very soft against her bare toes.

Someone must have taken off her shoes and socks, she realizes as she drifts back off. Taken them off and tucked her in and…

She doesn't realize there's moisture in her eyes until Emma's toes flex against her legs. "Hey."

Krissy blinks, sitting up gradually. Emma, looking half-asleep herself, face creased with the imprint of the couch fabric, opens up her arms, scooting down on the couch.

Krissy slithers into them. Emma's hoodie is soft against her face, and the crook of her shoulder smells like lavender deodorant and soap.

"Not fair," comes a cranky voice from the floor, and a foot lands on Krissy's knee where it's pressed between Emma's. It digs in as Claire must scoot herself down the carpet, closer to them.

Emma slings a leg over the side of the couch, eliciting an "ugh" from Claire that must be her foot impacting Claire's stomach.

"You asked for it," Emma says sleepily. "Now shut up, I'm sleeping."

Krissy breathes a laugh into her armpit. Emma jolts at the sensation, elbowing her.

"Ow," says Claire's voice.

Emma tightens her arms warningly around Krissy. "Whoever wakes me up again has to make me waffles."

"Not it," Krissy says at the same time as Claire.

" _Both_ of you," Emma says,

They're all quiet for a while. Then Emma's stomach growls, right under Krissy.

"Uh-oh," Claire says.

"Release the kraken," Krissy says.

"Shut up," Emma says. Her voice is just above Krissy's ear. She sits up, dislodging Krissy. "Do we still have that leftover Domino's?"

Claire groans and Krissy does, too, sliding off the couch and taking the blanket with her to sprawl out next to Claire.

Emma makes sure to step on them both on her way to the kitchen.

 

 


	7. Hael/Emma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was supposed to be Hael x Claire and became Hael/Emma. Oops.

 

Hael wakes up in a place that echoes like the halls of Heaven. Like the canyon she created once, and like the huge, echoing train station she has never been to but somehow has memories of, mixed with the smell of coffee beans and the sharp minty taste of evergreen.

(When she was in the human vessel, she slept. A sign of the imperfection of the vessel, creeping like the decay up the tiny rootlets that carried its blood. She could feel herself being pulled down. Clawing at the air above her, gasping. Waking up.)

She wanders down the cavernous passageway. It is lined with seats. There is a thing squalling under one of them.

Her lip curls at it. She keeps walking. Loathing the weight of her steps, the echoing clicks made by her feet. She thinks of possessive articles in French, _the_ instead of his or her or its to refer to the parts of the body, as If they, too, were angels nailed to the ground, needing to escape the bodies they did not wish to claim as their own.

Now there are many creatures, lying under the benches, lying on them. Piles of crumpled cloth, stirring as she walks. Her steps quicken. Her steps become a run.

She cannot fly. The walls rise up on either side of her like a canyon.

As she runs. A shape appearing, not slumping or lying or curled up. It sits in one of the chairs. It is tearing bright red flesh from one of the piles. It looks up and grins a bloody grin.

The fear recedes in the chest around Hael. Releasing its grip on the ribcage and allowing her to breathe. She slows to a walk, shoulders straightening, turns the walk into a stride. Regal.

The creatures watches her approach. It continues to chew, but the movements of its mouth become more deliberate, like a baring of teeth. It narrows its eyes, and they darken from bright red and yellow to human-like, dark and dull. The lips Hael is wearing curl.

She stops in front of it. “What is this place?”

The creature spits out a bit of gristle. It lands next to the feet, yellow and glistening. Hael wrinkles the nose at it. “The end.”

Hael looks back up at the creature. It has gone back to chewing, but it watches Hael with its dark eyes.

“How do I get out?”

The creature laughs. “You’re dead.”

Hael lifts the chin. “Angels don’t die.”

It is the creature’s turn to curl its lip in disgust. It tosses aside the carcass in its hand.

Something starts to wail. Hael barely has time to see what it is, one of the tiny things wrapped in cloth beneath the seat, before the creature, swift as a blink, has slits its throat. Dark blood runs silently down onto the marble floor.

Hael watches with interest. “What are they?”

The creature doesn’t answer the question. Its face is paler than it was, the red back in the corners of its eyes.  “They keep crying,” it mutters, and sinks to the floor. Then it is four-legged, somehow, and loping away.

“Wait!” Hael orders. But the other ignores Hael, disappearing ahead.

Hael breaks into a run after it, wails beginning to rise around her. The walls looming up again.

They become a subterranean tunnel. The porch of a dwelling.

Hael is in someone’s Heaven, she realizes. Twisted labyrinths full of human memories. But the creature is not a human. It shouldn’t be here.

Nor should Hael.

She finds the creature peering into a cradles. A child stares back up at her, not swaddled like the others, but with a pink crinkled headband around its large ugly head.

Red saliva drips onto her from the creature’s teeth. Lands on the big forehead and rolls down to soak the petal-pink fabric of the headband.

A man comes into the room, speaking to a woman. They pass through the creature like it isn’t there. The man stares at the baby. The creature stares at him.

Hael feels a sort of sensation, a twinge, as if understood by the human she possessed (possesses), a sort of familiarity, the idea of being walked past by someone whom you wanted so badly to see you.

Castiel’s earnest face. His bold betrayal. The flash of burning white as he thrust the blade into the abdomen.

The man is walking away. Walking through _her_. She looks down, on a whisper of premonition, and sees the blood spreading from the hole in the belly. The dark veins traveling outward from it.

The creature doesn’t notice. It is too busy looking at the man. Hael wants to shout, look at me. Look at _me_!

The man exits the room. The woman lifts the baby and take it away, too. The creature watches them go. Then its gaze, yellow and hungry, lands on Hael.

The eyes widen. The creature steps back. “What are you?”

Hael realizes the hole is starting to glow. Her Grace starting to leak away. Her true Faces flickering in its light.

She tries to speak. Only a tiger’s snarl comes out, though, and the creature’s face softens. It steps closer. Winding its arms up around Hael’s furred neck, the coiled muscles. Her Grace burns it as it touches her, horrible scars winding up the creature’s tan arms. Hael feels regret, fear—sudden affection for the creature that wants to hold her close. That eats the things that frighten it, wailing in the emptiness.

She tries to open her mouth to warn it away. But—

 

A flash of burning white.

 

She wakes up in a hallway. It echoes like the halls of Heaven.

Beside her, a creature feeds.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
